Sunday, 26 January 2020

“Earth Elementals Speak Terran But Rarely Choose To Do So.”

"Though an earth elemental moves slowly, it is a relentless opponent."
This 67mm tall model of an Earth Elemental is produced by “Wizkids” and can be bought from their Nolzur’s Marvellous Miniatures range. Able to “travel though solid ground or stone as easily as humans walk on the earth’s surface” the summoned creature made its first appearance in the original 1974 “Dungeons & Dragons” boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and “can come in almost any shape, size, and composition imaginable.”

Unable to swim, the monster was first primed using a double-layer of “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna and somewhat submerged in “The Army Painter” Strong Tone Quickshade. The figure was then enthusiastically dry-brushed in (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna, before receiving a significantly lighter ‘dusting’ with a make-up brush containing a little Heavy Brown.
Alien warriors tear down the mighty Godzilla, whilst some Alien Stalkers fast approach Mister Fantastic
The Elemental’s formidable maw was darkened using a combination of “Citadel” Abaddon Black and Nuln Oil, and subsequently shaded with (more) Strong Tone Quickshade by “The Army Painter”. Finally, I ‘picked out’ the model’s eyes with a couple of dabs of “Vallejo” Heavy Ochre and shaded them with a spot of “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade…

I have also paid another visit to the LVL Up Gaming Store in Bournemouth so as to play-test the revised statistics for H.R. Giger's Aliens for my homemade rule-set "M.I.S.S." On this occasion I brought along one of my 3 x 3 foot "Deep Cut Studio" mats for us to battle over, and absolutely covered the Space Hulk with as much pre-painted terrain by “Tablescape” as we could muster.
Groot attempts to hold off an Alien attack on one flank, whilst Ben Grimm decides its Clobberin' Time
Facing eight lethal Xenomorph warriors, including their leader Grid, as well as a unit of Alien Stalkers and Alien Infants, my opponent went for an odd mix of super-heroes with which to fend them off; including such notable "Marvel Worldwide" characters as The Thing and Mister Fantastic, alongside the fearsome Godzilla and smart-mouthed Rocket Raccoon. The game ended being rather long, and reasonably bloody, with the 'King Of The Monsters' somewhat surprisingly being overrun rather quickly on one of the heroes' flanks.

Fortunately, the likes of Man-Thing and Vampire-By-Night managed to steady the ship, whilst The Thing and Groot kept the other flank somewhat more secure. The fight was finally won by Reed Richard's 'Fantastic Ten' by only a handful of Victory Points, with the 'Man Of The Match' award going to Rocket Raccoon, after the gun-toting animal solidly held the centre throughout from atop a pile of wooden crates. 

14 comments:

  1. Great work on the elemental Simon, sounds like your new rules for the aliens are working better, how's your flying rules doing ?

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    1. Thanks Dave. The Aliens rules seem to work fine now tbh, and the tweaked flying rules were seemed to work well too. Really pleased with how the evening's game went, despite losing in the final few dice rolls.

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  2. Looks fun. I bet Reed Richards shrunk Godzilla with one of his inventions.

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    1. Cheers Phil. Sadly Godzilla is not the biggest of "Wizkids" minis by a long way, but he's still a nice size tbh.

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  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. "Lovely job Simon." - Thanks Michael. Apologies for removing your comment, I seem to have hit the wrong button...

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  4. Earth Elemental (and all elementals) bring a certain special fear to my player team, it was the mere mentioned threat of unearthing one of these monstrosities that drove my players to flee hastily in a boat in one of my last Tegel Manor episodes - THAT was an Earth Elemental to, I recall hehe. Very nice indeed.. but I`m very interested in learning more about M.I.S.S. I do very much respect homebrew rules and hope you showcase your work in more depth at some stage.

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    1. Cheers Steve. The Earth Elemental was a lot of fun to paint. I'm certainly planning on a lot more "M.I.S.S." stuff over the next year, maybe with a view to getting it self-published? Not sure yet, but I've been playing it for twenty years and still thoroughly enjoy its simplicity.

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  5. An earth elemental is proabbly a bit boring to paiat with its restrcited colour shceme, but you've certainlygivenit a personality.
    Good to see you getting in another game that seemed to go smoothly.
    Have you re-thought the flying conundrum ?

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    1. Thanks very much Joe. The revised flying rules do work a lot better thanks. Hopefully I'll be able to cover them in an imminent BatRep or two :-)

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  6. An angry elemental at that! He looks cool Simon, well done!

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  7. Great looking elemental, really like the sculpt and a fabulous paintjob. Your games just get weirder! But sound fun!

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    1. Thanks Undercoat. I'm a big fan of throwing some minis against one another and simply seeing how their fare :-)

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